Offset Printing
HR-UV at Druckerei Vogl:
Friday 06. November 2015 - Specialist for luxury uncoated stock printing with Rapida 106
“Our customers should experience a haptic sensation,” says Ralf Vogl, managing director of the German printing company which bears the same name, when explaining his dedication to printing on uncoated stock. Some four years ago he found this market niche and in the meantime he has become a renowned specialist for this type of challenging substrate. His company has enjoyed success with Moët Hennessy, BMW, Porsche and many more luxury brand names belonging to his client base.
Up until now production on uncoated stock took place on a Rapida 105 universal with highly pigmented Aniva ink. A prerequisite for this is the high gamut workflow which was developed in-house and significantly extends the colour space compared to the PSO standard (ISO 12647). Additionally, years of experience and extensive tests allowed the company to develop ICC profiles which are suited to varying degrees of substrate absorption. When printing on uncoated stock Vogl is thus able to produce results that are identical to those of coated paper in terms of their image definition, colour scheme and saturation. Or the other way around, the final results a customer expects on illustration printing paper should also be what he gets on uncoated stock.
Rich colours and calm surfaces
Impressive print samples with calm surfaces and luscious colours today are proof. In order to make his customers change their way of thinking, Ralf Vogl takes their old job data and prints onto uncoated stock letting them compare. They then see what is possible from a technological point of view today and how different the results are compared to printing in the past, especially as “each of them have had bad experiences with uncoated stock”, the managing director knows. Today Vogl is the only printing company in and around Munich which specialises in printing on this special stock. He believes he is some two to three years ahead of this market segment, nevertheless he knows that others can easily catch-up with new technology.
Along with the move from Munich into a cutting-edge hall on the edge of Zorneding, at the end of last year the purchase of a new B3 sheetfed offset press was on the agenda. This meant another leap in process technology development: the new press is a five-colour Rapida 106 with coater and HR-UV kit. It is the ideal press for printing on uncoated stock. Even though everyone is talking about LED-UV, Ralf Vogl consciously opted for this highly reactive UV system. A wide range of special inks is thus available from the first day onwards. Over 10 per cent of production is with special inks. What is more, the fifth unit is used for finishing.
More jobs per shift
Two reasons in particular tipped the scales in favour of the high-performance Rapida: its high level of automation with minimal makeready times and its outstanding print results in UV printing. Makeready times are a priority given the firm’s average job size of between 2,000 and 3,000 sheets and a raft of single jobs with one to four formes. Its high speed of up to 18,000sph is ultimately of secondary importance. However, a large speedometer displays how fast the press is running in the press room, pre-press and meeting rooms. “This motivates our press operators and impresses our visitors,” says Ralf Vogl. Customers often come from other cities to accept printwork, sometimes also from Paris.
The company is flexible when it comes to UV curing. Depending on job, the dryers can be placed between the delivery extension and the individual printing units, they can be moved to where they are needed. Furthermore, an advantage of UV printing is that powder is no longer necessary. This results in longer cycles in between washing the blanket as well as less cleaning and maintenance. Powder does not collect in the first unit any more when perfecting in the second pass.
Lenticular printing as a further business field
The Rapida 106 is also equipped for film printing as Vogl aims to serve the film market in the future and print lenticular films. This was kept to small format in the past due to the platesetters. This business field is expected to be expanded into medium format with the purchase of new platesetters. It is as challenging as printing on uncoated stock, but more profitable than the production of standard print products.
The production of extraordinary print products is perfectly suited to the specialists from Druckerei Vogl. Ralf Vogl’s favourite products are those with a high degree of finishing. An example is the Bid Book, the official bidding documents for the football World Cup 2022 in Qatar. The box is covered in real leather, a real leather cover features gravure and an incorporated metal plate, a CD compartment on the second cover side, and 750 pages with a job size of only 250 copies produced in sheetfed offset. Product development up to the design of the box also belong to the printing company’s product range. Official visitors from the Emirates came to the company to accept the printwork.
Ralf Vogl passes those highly specialised processes which cannot be carried out on-site on to reliable partner businesses. In this way the customer, predominantly agencies, receive the total package from one source.
The new, cutting-edge headquarters in Zorneding is not the company’s first site. Founded in 1956, it has moved many times in Munich and has been continually expanded. It has 25 employees and operates in three shifts.